Chris Pine On 'People Like Us'

By Out.com Editors May 14, 2013, 9:50 p.m.

You probably didn’t see People Like Us, the dysfunctional family drama Chris Pine starred in last year with Elizabeth Banks (The Hunger Games), Michelle Pfeiffer, and Olivia Wilde. Almost nobody saw it. It's not because it wasn’t a top-notch indie film. In fact, it could’ve given Silver Linings Playbook a run for its money—if any marketing money had, in fact, been thrown its way.

For today's bonus outtake from our June/July cover story, writer Shana Naomi Krochmal shares Pine's comments about the experience making People Like Us and the response to his darker, less heroic character.

CHRIS PINE:

"I have the real blessing of having two great, giant films, so I think for the time being, God willing, I have the luxury of maybe exploring a little more [again]. What I liked about that film was I loved having a small crew. I felt the intimacy of being able to perform amongst people that very shortly you’re able to strike a bond with. I loved the fact that it was language centric, and often times bigger films aren’t.

"The one awful thing you have to relinquish as an actor is control. I get many explanations as to when it was released when it was, and why they changed the name of the film, and I could jump into that rabbit hole for a long time. It was a really hard experience. I think all of us in it gave as much as we could, and I know for [writer/director] Alex [Kurtzman] it was very meaningful to do something that profoundly intimate and revealing. It’s a tough fucking world, man. Even tougher, I think, with the Internet, when everybody’s got a fucking blow-horn.

"The nice thing is that you do run into people that were affected by it and will watch it on the plane, or will be home on a Friday night and find it on Netflix, and that’s cool. I don’t think it’s a perfect film at all. But there’s some really big, important things in there about family and reconciliation and choosing the path forward with the people that are in your lives—or choosing the resentment and the hostility over acceptance. Really tough things. I learned a lot from being a part of it.

"I—like the sad, fragile ego I am—read some of the comments about the film and people were just relentlessly ripping this character apart for being such a bad person. But I think in all of that ripping it apart, they’re responding to something. There is a reflection there that they respond to. And whether it’s that—or Kirk, the man who lost his father way too young—the more vulnerability you can show, the more flaws you can truthfully inhabit—that’s what I think is responsible for grabbing a person’s interest."